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their danger of destruction. "The whole need not a phy-

20. sician." Perfect love casteth out fear. Perfect fear casteth

out love. The greater our danger the less our love, then, be-

cause the more fear. Proof that God is love to all His crea-

tures; even in causing sinners to die. Who loveth most? He

to whom thou forgave most; not he who had most reason to

view God as dooming him to Misery Eternal. Hope, the milk

of love, the infant's food. Fear poisonous, yet useful as

21. medicine. This doctrine may prevent sin. So may palsy in

the limbs. Like that, it restrains the act and leaves the desire;

"but he that looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath al-

ready committed adultery in his heart." This doctrine may

restrain, but cannot excite the love of God. All knowledge

of God does excite love of Him. The question involves

God's relation to the greatest part of mankind for the greatest

duration. The true opinion must be knowledge of God; if

knowledge, it must excite love; if it does not, it cannot be

true. If necessary to morality, it must be generally believed;

else morality subsists without it: if generally believed, then

22. crimes would cease. Then it is not believed: then morality,

Fear of Him,

such as it is, subsists without it. Although we may love one

who we think chastises us for our good, we cannot the author

of Eternal Misery. Man would not be worse, except so far as

now religious, which the great bulk are not. Fear of offend-

ing God so far as to lose Him, is my principle.

as cruel and inexorable, necessary to this doctrine. Those

who wish to retain this doctrine, must consider it as desirable

in itself on the whole; yet all its advantages in human life,

even if it have any, would be too dearly obtained by devoting

one human being to Eternal Misery. The state of a man's

mind at death determines his future fate; then the insensibility

that attends a course of sin, which is the quitting of the Holy

Spirit, and gradual death, alleviates the punishment it ought

23. to aggravate. If eternal sufferings attend sin, the first step

which is the least deviation from right, but performed with the

utmost consciousness of sin, will cause more sufferings than a

series of actions when brutalized by practice. This intelligi-

ble on one scheme, but not on the other. See our Lord's

enumeration of that which defileth a man, Mark vii. 22.

The end of all is foolishness, or the loss of that which distin-

guished him as man. View the sinner sinking deeper and

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deeper in brutality, until the last glimmer of spiritual life is

24. extinguished. Of various senses, that must be chosen which

harmonizes with the rest of scripture; especially if nature

coalesces therewith and rejects the others. The laws of na-

ture and Christianity prove their common origin by identity

of result. Both lead to the knowledge of God. Our appe-

tites, our faculties, and our moral relations, each subserve to

the perfection of our nature, and prepare us for God's pre-

sence: it is the right employment of these, by virtue of the

spiritual life Christ offers to us, that procures us immortality.

25. All the duties of life have an immortal tendency: well per-

formed they make us more like God, and so fit us for His pre-

26. sence. "Every idle word God will judge." This proved.

Immortal life growing within us only when we act from a

desire of pleasing God. A moral demonstration against the

doctrine. It is man's duty to desire God's will to be done in

all things. That which is his duty, he must be naturally capa-

'ble of performing. Man is incapable of desiring that the

majority of his fellow creatures should be eternally miserable

in hell. Then it cannot be his duty to desire it. Then it

cannot be God's will. The same actions, performed on this

principle, and any other, bring us to immortality, or remove

27. us from it. This shewn of alms-giving in various instances.

Intention to please God, the only certain rule of action:

wanting that, our actions want the principle of life, and there-

fore are sin, (i.e. are contrary to the Divine will,) the end of

28. which is death, to which the multitude tend. Nothing is pre-

served longer than it produces the effect for which it was

created; therefore, when the knowledge of God is lost, de-

29. struction cannot be far off. Experience, then, confirms that

30. "strait is the gate," &c. No truth in scripture is more un-

questionable than this-that the scheme of man's redemption

proves the love of God to man. From the fall to the advent

it is always spoken of as "good tidings of great joy, that shall

31. be to all people." The reverse of this is true to the great

majority, if sinners are restored to their lost immortality as

sinners. Satisfaction for the sins of mankind cannot have

increased the penalty infinitely. Death the threatened penalty.

32. Various concurring proofs of this. Life to those only who

by grace love God, from Adam till the end of the world.

Zeal not according to knowledge when the whole is sacrificed

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33. for a part. Our Saviour's parables the words of wisdom. As

such, must have every propriety. To be estimated differently

from the words of men, because He knew all things. Parable

34. of the sower. Seed caught away; having no root, withereth;

choaked with thorns. Those who bear no fruit lose the

kingdom; but are not steeped in misery ten thousand fathoms

deep. Wheat and tares. Wheat preserved, tares destroyed.

35. Existence continued to the wicked, because mingled with the

good: "Let them grow together until the harvest, lest ye root

up the wheat also." Weeping and gnashing of teeth. Shall

the misfortunes of this life cause that, and shall not the very

36. presence of God, as an avenging and consuming fire? Net

cast into the sea. Gather the good into vessels, but cast the

bad away. Labourers in the vineyard. Those called in the

eleventh hour obtain salvation; but will the Lord of the Vine-

yard feed and clothe, for all eternity, those who will not work?

37. The merciless servant forgiven two millions sterling; but not

the want of love. "If ye love not your brother whom ye

have seen, how can ye love God whom ye have not seen?"

38. The love of God is life, the want of it extinction. The

wicked husbandmen destroyed, and their portion of existence

given to others. Marriage of the king's son. Even he who

came without a wedding garment is cast out.

coming to God be punished with Eternal Misery? Surely not;

but it will be unfruitful if His conditions are not complied

with. The wise and foolish virgins. Admission and exclusion.

39. The talents blessed or cursed, increased, or withdrawn " even

that which he seemeth to have." All scripture must be har-

monious, but especially parts of the same discourse. Sower

in St. Mark's gospel. Seed time and harvest-word of God

40. and immortality. The fruitless fig-tree cumbereth the earth.

Dives and Lazarus, a real difference between them. The day

of judgment accounts for all this parable contains; which the

doctrine of Eternal Misery does not. Not a narrative, be-

41. cause it assumes that which our Saviour declares shall be at

42. His second coming. Various other parables, alluded to as

43. excluding this doctrine, and a review of the whole.

Can a desire of

In page 44, is offered an explanation of the expression,

Matt. iii. 11, "Shall baptize you with fire."

From page 43 to 77 are contained extracts from the words

of St. John the Baptist and of our blessed Saviour, and from

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the prophets, which are hard to be understood, when other

parts of the scripture are "wrested" to make them denounce

Eternal Misery. In the first six chapters of St. John's gospel,

eternal life is declared, twenty-six times, to be given only to

believers in Christ; which, to those who were turned out of

Paradise lest they should "live for ever," and at the hands of

a good God, whose gifts are always blessings, must imply the

mortality of those who fail to come up to the condition on

which immortality is offered.

77. This seen especially in the answer to the Sadducees concern-

78. ing the resurrection. Future state of existence, the object of

the Sadducees' enquiry. If there be one of Eternal Misery, that:

must be theirs, because of their unbelief. Impossible our

Saviour, who was kind to the unthankful and to the evil, could

mock men on the brink of Eternal Misery, by concealing from

them the precipice they overhung. This answer being irrecon-

cileable to the doctrine of Eternal Misery, prepares for the

79. consideration of the passages thought to contain it. Enquiry

how the great points of faith are affected by the one doctrine

and the other. The death of Christ as a sacrifice for the sins

89. of mankind. Christ suffered the punishment due to our

offences-death, departure of God's spirit, agony in the gar-

den, weeping, and gnashing of teeth. Christ himself said " It

is finished," when He gave up the ghost; having pointed out

to us whom, and what we ought to fear, when he cried "My

God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" Whatever the

curse on Adam was, Christ endured it for mankind-for as

To the curse the natural

many as shall believe in His name.

man is still subject; for as are the earthy, so are they that are

earthy; and it is a plain consequence that flesh and blood, the

dust of the earth, can no more endure for ever than it can

enter into the kingdom of heaven. Hatred of God essential

to hell torments: this Christ could not chuse nor God ap

prove. Absurd to say an immortal being can again begin to

live. How Christ was made a curse for us; not by changing

His humiliation for a state of glory, but by the departure of

God's spirit from Him, as it will from all who are not in

Christ new creatures, and at the final departure of which we

81. too may say "it is finished." How Christ could be made sin

how He could endure misery-how God could be pleased

with His sufferings-how His righteousness can be imputed

b